Snuffing Out an Angel's Breath
by Thedragon456123
Summary: Nico ends up falling into Tartarus with Percy and Annabeth, but this time, he's missing a hand. Rated T for violence. Solangelo!
1. Chapter 1

_These people aren't mine. *sigh*_

Percy wasn't sure if Nico was alive or dead. His skin was really pale, and his was really thin, his cloths hanging off of his body. From where Percy was standing, he couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. They had to distract the giants to give Nico some recovery time. He didn't realize everyone was still talking until Ephialtes said loudly, "Wonderful! Did you hear that, Otis?"

"Actor," Otis murmured. "Everybody's an actor. No one can dance."

"Be nice!" Ephialtes scolded. "At any rate, my girl, you're absolutely right, but _this_ hypogeum is much more than the stageworks for a coliseum. You've heard that in the old days some giants were imprisoned under the earth, and from time to time they would cause earthquakes when they tried to break free? Well, we've done much better! Otis and I have been imprisoned under Rome for eons, but we've kept busy building our very own hypogeum. Now we're ready to create the greatest spectacle Rome has ever seen-and the last!"

At Otis's feet, Nico shuttered, then slowly and painfully started trying to craw away. Otis looked down at him, saying, "Are you going to leave without a parting gift? But we've become such close friends!" The giant had a cold gleam in his eyes as he picked up Nico. The son of Hades didn't have enough strength left to fight against him. Otis grabbed Nico's forearm and snapped it with one quick motion. Nico screamed in agony. Otis continued to bend his arm until the shattered bone broke his skin, jutting out of him and covering the limb with blood. Nico's screams intensified as Otis started to twist the area where the break was located, tearing most of the skin apart.

Jason yelled in rage and charged the giant with Percy and Piper behind him. Otis and Ephialtes vanished, dropping Nico onto the hard ground. He curled into a ball on his side, cradling his arm tightly against his stomach, tears running down his face.

Piper rushed to his side, slowly rolling him so he was lying on his back, and examined his arm. "I'm sorry, Nico. I have zero medical knowledge," she said.

"Do you have a blade?" Nico asked. It was a strange question, but Piper nodded. "The entire bone is broken," he muttered, lifting his arm slightly and watching as the lower section hung down at a ninety-degree angle, hanging by the strips of skin that were still intact. Piper almost threw up. "That's not going to heal. Just cut it off. I can't have this dead meat hanging off my arm for the rest of my life."

"What?! Nico, I can't do that. Your arm _will_ heal," Piper said.

"You know it won't. Just cut it."

Piper drew her knife, and then hesitated before holding it to the remaining skin that held his arm intact. Nico closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Nico." She put pressure on the skin, drawing blood and making Nico cry out in pain.

Percy turned at the sound, yelling, "Piper! What are you doing?"

"I'm just doing what Nico told me to." Piper finished cutting, and the severed wrist and hand fell onto the ground. Nico had passed out sometime before. Piper pulled Nico's sweatshirt off of him and ripped it into strips to use as bandages. She made a mental note to buy him a new sweatshirt when this was all over.

Suddenly, sandbags fell from the ceiling. Piper tried to shield Nico, but of the bags hit her shoulder, causing her to black out temporarily.

When Piper woke up, she and Nico were sitting next to a throne. Well, more of she was sitting, and Nico was lying unconscious on a cot with a satyr bandaging his arm. There was a dull ache in her shoulder. They were overlooking an arena, where Jason and Percy were fighting the two giants. Piper looked up at the throne. Dionysus-no-Bacchus was sitting on it, eating grapes presented to him by satyrs and watching the boys' fight with interest. There were crowds of ghosts cheering in the stands.

"I will make them suffer!" Ephialtes yelled.

Then Piper noticed the Argo II in the sky, its ballista blazing with green fire. Percy jumped into a trench and Jason hid behind a Styrofoam horse as an explosion rocked the Coliseum. When the dust cleared, the Argo II had landed, and Ephialtes was on the ground, charred and groaning.

Bacchus disappeared and appeared next to Percy, who had climbed out of the trench. He walked over and killed Otis, and then Ephialtes. Next to Piper, Nico stirred, groaning. "Are you okay?" Piper asked, moving to sit next to him on the cot.

"'M fine," he muttered. He held his arm in front of his face, examining the stub where his hand and wrist used to be. "At least it's a clean cut. Good job, random girl I've never met before."

Piper laughed. "My name's Piper. It's nice to meet you, although I wish we could've met on different terms."

"Nice to meet you too Piper," Nico said, holding out his good hand to shake. Piper complied, and then helped him sit up. He leaned back against a wall behind him, too weak to do much more.

"So you're not mad about…you know." Piper looked at the ground.

"You cutting off my hand?" Nico asked. Piper nodded. "No. I'm not mad about that. Although I do wish you guys had found me a little faster. If you had been just a little later, I would've died."

Piper was about to respond when both Nico and herself vanished and reappeared in the arena next to the ship. Nico crumpled, incapable of holding his own weight. Hazel ran to him and supported him as the boarded the Argo II.

Hazel sat Nico down at the stern to check him over for injuries and feed him ambrosia. That was when she noticed his hand, or lack of hand. "Nico! Your hand… What happened?"

"Giants happened," he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear, "Otis wanted a 'parting gift' and I unwillingly complied. Piper had to cut it off."

Hazel gasped, glancing over at Piper.

**It goes the same as it did in the book until now.**

"We should get on the ship: this floor isn't going to hold out much longer. We don't want to fall to Tartarus," Hazel said, taking a step back as the floor rumbled. Leo, Frank, and Jason were securing the statue. Annabeth cried out as she fell as was dragged backwards by something attached to her foot. Hazel sprinted towards the rope ladder, and Nico tried hard to follow, but walking was still difficult and he was slow. He made it to the ladder just as the floor gave out beneath his feet and he fell, only for Hazel to reach down and grab his arm. Nico yelped in pain.

He could hear Annabeth and Percy yelling for help, as the two were also hanging over the pit. Nico knew Hazel wouldn't be able to pull herself up until she dropped him because he was too heavy. "Hazel!" he yelled, "Let go of me! Save yourself!"

"No, Nico!" she called back, "I'm not letting you go back down there."

"It's okay! I'll close the doors from the inside! You can meet me there!"

"Nico, no!" Hazel sobbed.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. Nico let go of his sister's hand, and for the second time in his life, fell into the everlasting darkness of Tartarus.

**I hope you guys liked it. Expect more chapters from this one. Please tell me what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do NOT ship Percico. If it starts to look like it, that is not my intention. **

Annabeth used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank. Her feet dug into the sandy bottom. She and Percy hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.

She tried to sit up and gasped in pain. The beach wasn't sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Annabeth's palms.

So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Annabeth took a rattling breath and wondered of the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.

Next to her, Percy coughed. "This place smells like my ex-stepfather."

Annabeth managed a weak smile. She'd never met Smelly Gabe, but she'd heard enough stories. She loved Percy for trying to lift her spirits.

If she'd fallen into Tartarus by herself, she'd be doomed. She would've curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus. But she wasn't alone. She had Percy. And whoever that was curled up on the ground about twenty feet away from her.

Annabeth stood up slowly and helped Percy do the same. Percy noticed what she was looking at and quickly drew his sword, approaching the shaking figure on the riverbank. As they got closer, Annabeth realized who it was they were looking at. She grabbed Percy's arm, whispering, "Percy! That's Nico."

Percy's eyes widened and he ran over to the son of Hades kneeling next to him. As he put a hand on Nico's shoulder, he cried out, flinching away from his touch. He curled farther into himself, muttering, "No! Please just let me go. I can't do this. I've told you everything! Just leave me alone! Just make it stop hurting." Percy pulled his hand away, glancing over at Annabeth.

She knelt on Nico's other side, talking in a calming voice. "Nico. It's okay. It's me, Annabeth. You're okay."

Nico opened his eyes, looking at Annabeth and revealing a face wet with tears. "A-A-Annabeth?" he stuttered.

"Yeah," She said, reaching out and resting her hand on his cheek. He flinched like he expected her to hit him. "Percy's here too."

Percy moved into view and Nico jumped, his eyes flashing between him and Annabeth. "You okay man?"

Nico shook his head. "I'm sorry guys. You shouldn't be here."

"It's okay, Nico. We're all going to find the Doors and we're all going to make it out of here. You've been here once before, so we need you to show us where to go," Percy said.

"I'm sorry, Percy. I wish I could help you, but I just can't do it. I can't walk through this place again. What you see when you look at the landscape is just a sugarcoated version of the real thing. It's too terrifying for your mind to be able to process, so you created your own version of it automatically. But I'm a son of Hades, and I don't have that luxury. I can _see_ it, Percy. And once you see it, you know it's hopeless. Fighting is hopeless."

**Short chapter, I'm sorry. Hope you liked it!**


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